may sing ''I've gone identity mad!'' on his debut album's opening tune and single, ''Grace Kelly,'' but Mika doesn't actually sound as confused about who he is as that might suggest. He's an assured and dramatic flair, most of them gay.
Any confusion stems from his trying much room for his brand of pop, much less someone gay.
is he or isn't he?
Is he or isn't he?
Mika course we want to know, and it's certainly not clear. It does seem Brown.'' The song is about a man who ''had lived an ordinary life, with two kids, a dog and a cautionary wife,'' but then his world was upended as he fell in love with another man.
''Billy Brown'' was a ''victim of his times,'' Mika sings. So, too Mika is of his.
Even if Mika is straight, his music is, unfortunately, probably too gay for today's Top 40.
That is, in the states. Not surprisingly, he is quite popular in his U.K.
base. So let's not box him in. The least us gays could do is savor his sound.
What's not to love? It's a very Brit-pop medley that would please most fans of the Scissor Sisters, as well as another contemporary Brit of a confusing but ostensibly straight persuasion, Robbie Williams. This is no black-or-white/rock-or-pop world.
It's a multi-dimensional, kaleidoscopic universe that could delight any and all, no matter if they're gay or straight, or a bit of both, or some undefined other. It shouldn't matter where Mika puts himself on that continuum.
addition to the Sisters' and Williams's patron saint Elton John, Mika or identifying the inspirations.
What a fun way to spend a day. before him. The brilliant ''Relax (Take It Easy)'' incorporates the Cutting Crew's '80s hit ''(I Just) Died In Your Arms,'' while also referencing the Frankie Goes to Hollywood classic.
The jaunty ''Big ''9 to 5.'' Even faint echoes of the Cranberries and Aerosmith can be heard on the overheated ''Erase.''
23-year-old Mika -- born in Lebanon and raised in Paris and London, fashions new, catchy tunes out of old, frayed cloth.
He doesn't always succeed. ''Love Today'' suffers from his ill-advised and overdone use of his falsetto, which elsewhere works every bit as will it all fray once more after too-many repeated listens? That's a worthy question.
But it hasn't happened to me yet after several months and plenty of chances to unravel. It's a surprisingly sturdy quilt.
may help foster a revival of Freddie Mercury's dramatic sound, but another British sensation, the band Klaxons, has been hyped with helping to ignite a revival of the dramatic sound of rave, the glow-stick and ecstasy-fueled dance style launched in the U.
K. some 15 or so years ago. Klaxons have been called the leaders of this so-called Nu Rave Movement, though it hasn't exactly gone gangbusters just yet.
And with good reason: Even if you had very little history or connection to raves, listening to Klaxon's debut, Myths of the connection to rave music, either. For starters, the trio of twentysomethings is too young to have been around.
The closest the band gets to dance, trance rockers, in the mold of Prodigy.
True, they often sing and create melodies that come and go and come again in repetitive, circular part of a communal activity worth celebrating (''As Above, So music that twists and turns and moves in unexpected directions. But mostly, the music is boring, nothing you'd care to listen to again, certainly nothing to dance to. Despite the hype, Klaxons threatens to - Housing, Services, Jobs
- Dating fun.
- New Director for DC s Gay Men s Chorus; 3 Pro-gay bills pass in Maryland; DC gays march for voting rights.
News RSS